On-Line Practices of Data Base Producers

This Working Paper reports on a study undertaken by us as a private venture for the Commission of the European Communities. The subject-matter is however closely related to the sub-task, International Data Exchange, included in the 1977 research plan of the Computer Science Group: one of the main areas of international data exchange at the scientific and technical level is the interactive interrogation of computer bibliographic and fact databases. During the present decade this has grown from insignificant levels to become an international business in North America and Europe with a total utilization of several hundred thousand hours of terminal connections per year. At a Workshop on International Data Exchange held by IIASA at Toronto in August 1977, to identify the critical issues for research in this general field, economic issues scored the highest individual rating, and it is evident that such problems may have a determining effect on future growth-rates, particularly outside the industrialized regions. The study reported here was essentially a fact-finding exercise on one aspect of the economics of scientific and technical information flows, that of the relation between charges to users and charges levied by the producers of scientific and technical information databases for the use of computerized versions of their products. Other important aspects remain open, in particular the influence of the changing policies of international carriers and telecommunication administrations on total user costs, the economies of scale to be obtained from multi database operators etc

Special Libraries, September 1978

Volume 69, Issue 9https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1978/1007/thumbnail.jp

A regional technology transfer program

The proliferation of online searching capabilities among its industrial clients, changes in marketing staff and direction, use of Dun and Bradstreet marketing service files, growth of the Annual Service Package program, and services delivered to clients at the NASA funded North Carolina Science and Technology Research Center are described. The library search service was reactivated and enlarged, and a survey was conducted on the NC/STRC Technical Bulletin's effectiveness. Several quotations from clients assess the overall value of the Center's services

A Computerized Marine Data and Information System-Endex/Oasis

The volume of international and national environmental data and information in the marine, earth and atmospheric sciences has created the need to systematically organize, handle, manipulate, store and retrieve this material utilizing sophisticated computer hardware and provide the scientist, student, planner and decision-maker with the awareness and accessibility of available data and information. Consonant with the objectives outlined for NOAA and the need generated by the explosion of information and data in this area, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA), Environmental Data Service (EDS) and the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), have an ongoing development effort in the Envirorrmental Data Index and theOceanic and Atmospheric Scientific Information System (ENDEX/OASIS) It provides a one - stop service on a marginal costrecovery basis that is available to the public for computerized searching of references to technical literature, data, and research dealing with the environmental sciences and marine and coastal resources

Special Libraries, July 1978

Volume 69, Issue 7https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1978/1005/thumbnail.jp

A survey of machine readable data bases

Forty-two of the machine readable data bases available to the technologist and researcher in the natural sciences and engineering are described and compared with the data bases and date base services offered by NASA

Special Libraries, April 1975

Volume 66, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1975/1003/thumbnail.jp

The BIOSIS data base: Evaluation of its indexes and the STRATBLDR, CHEMFILE, STAIRS and DIALOG systems for on-line searching

An IBM-developed program, STAIRS, was selected for performing a search on the BIOSIS file. The evaluation of the hardware and search systems and the strategies used are discussed. The searches are analyzed by type of end user